Next
by phantasmal-wanderer
Summary: This is a story of how two girls get recruited for the X-Men early on in season 1. Join Molly and Piper on their journey to master their powers and learn how to fit in, in the world around them. Of course, who's to say that one of them isn't a manipulative jerk? It's sure to be interesting around the house.


**A/N: Hey everyone and welcome to 'Next'! It will feature these two lovely gal's on their struggle to controlling their powers, and blending in with the human world. Although, we have one 'baddie' who will soon be making an appearance. But there are no spoilers here. So, hope you enjoy it! Tell me which one of the two girls you like better! Review if you feel up to it, but only if you feel up to it. There's no pressure. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men Evolution. If I did, I'd make more episodes. **

* * *

The basic sentence, 'Children are meant to be seen, not heard' defined her existence. She was never allowed to speak her mind, and so she kept it all bottled up. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why she became a mutant in the first place? She wasn't quite sure, and honestly, she thought of her powers as more of a nuisance than a gift.

The girl sat down in the big leather office chair inside of her father's office. He was busy talking on the phone, most likely setting up a business arrangement. And by that, it meant profit for her father and corporate failures for the poor soul on the other end. She was staring into her lap, what was she to her father anyways? He probably only kept her around to read the minds of his workers and seeing if they double crossed him.

How was this fair? It wasn't in the slightest. She felt more like a mascot or a tool for business rather than an actual human being. This is what tore her up on the inside, but she kept it well hidden. Her emotions were sealed, and she hadn't expressed herself at all since the day when she had first gotten her powers. She had cried in front of the man, and he had back handed her hard across the face. He claimed that she was embarrassing him, and that he wouldn't put up with her childish acts.

"Oh yes, I can assure that your company will be in good hands", her father said as his face contorted into an evil smirk. He turned in his swivel chair, the phone cord being wrapped around the chair in the process.

The girl cocked her head to the side, before her eyes started to glow with a faint trace of yellow. By doing this, she could read anyone's mind as she wished. She stared and concentrated a little at the back of her father's head.

'_And by good hands, I mean my hands. What an idiot you are, you don't even know that I'm sucking your company dry by the second!_' she read as her eyes went back to their regular color. She glanced at the ground. Why was her father such an evil mind? When did he stop caring about her?

She was pulled out of her thoughts when the phone slammed down on its holder, and her father erupted into an ominous laughter that could put chills up your spine. "This is just precious! Soon, I'll be the wealthiest man in all New York!" He yelled happily to himself as he laughed to himself once more. He then settled down and glanced around the room and spotted the girl with the salmon colored hair.

"Girl, what have I told you about not doing your job? Get down to the workers area and start doing your freaky shit!" Her father hissed in an unidentifiable rude manner. The girl looked up and met eye contact with her father. She then stood up and started to head to the door. Suddenly something slammed against the door that she was about to open. She looked down and saw a broken wine glass that her father had just recently drank out of. Just a few more inches to her right, and it would have hit her.

"And don't you give me that look, freak. You're only around because I keep you around, you hear me?! One slip up, and I'm giving you over to S.H.I.E.L.D, got that?" He replied as he glared over the tops of his glasses. The girl turned around and blinked at him, before giving a curt nod. He sighed before making a hand motion signaling her to get out of his presence.

She only turned around and quickly exited the room. He would do it, too. In a heartbeat he could end her life as she knew it. She could feel her heartbeat slowly increase after every second, sure, the threat has been made many times before, but the fact that her father stated this threat while he was sober…it had really put her on edge…

* * *

"Make sure you pick up all of that trash!" Her step mother cried out to her from the next room, drunk to kingdom-com. She sighed as she started to complete her task at hand, and that would be all of the dishes that were presently in the dirty sink. They were stacked until they almost fell.

"Don't forget about the…" Came the slurred voice again, before it suddenly stopped. Intrigued, the girl went into the next room to take an observation. As she had guessed, the woman that she had despised had passed out. She was busy snoring away on the sofa with an empty beer bottle in her hand.

"Damn woman, must have passed out from all that drinking…" the girl said as she rolled her eyes, when suddenly the phone rang from the kitchen. She cocked her head in curiosity at who would be calling at two in the morning. Entering the kitchen, she found a nearby towel and dried her hands that were wet from doing the dishes. She then reached for the phone and answered it.

"You have reached Hell, what can we do to help you this fine morning?" She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She was going to complain to this stranger even more, but the voice that responded made her blood stop.

"Piper…?" Came the male's voice from the other line.

The girl, Piper, took a moment before replying back into the phone, "Dad? Is that really you? When are you coming home!?"

"Piper…listen. I'm not coming home. My work is making me stay for another outage an-

"No! You can't leave me here with this…This…_Woman_", Piper said, her hands trembling with rage as her strength was threatening to tear the phone into two.

"There's really nothing that I can do…" He said, his voice filled with sympathy.

"Can't I live with you? You said before that I-

"No…That's not just possible…Piper I'm-

She hung up the phone forcefully against the wall in a fit of rage. Then, the whole entire room was drenched with water. Little did Piper know, that due to her rage, water from the sink had been falling up and accumulating at the ceiling, and when she had hung up the phone, the water had fallen.

"W-What?" Piper asked as she looked around her kitchen and found that everything had been drenched in water, including herself. "D-Did I…?" She asked to herself before glancing around the room again. "Great, not only do I have daddy issues, but now I've also earned the title 'freak', that's just _perfect_", she said, her voice once again dripping with sarcasm.

* * *

**(The next day)**

Piper snuck out of the house at 6 in the morning, only getting a good four hours of sleep. She yawned as she closed the door and started making her way down the front steps of her house. It was winter, one of the coldest temperature drops of the year, as a result Piper's yawn turned into a small shudder.

"I'm getting…Real tired of this lifestyle…" Piper mumbled to herself as she readjusted her backpack on her shoulders. She had about five minutes before her bus came to pick her up…And she hated the mess she would have to pick up when she got home that evening. "No, that's okay. Comes with the territory…I just have to clean up everything. Call me modern day Cinderalla, minus the step sisters", she rambled as she made her way to the designated stop. She leaned against a nearby tree, still exhausted.

She eyed the glistening snow on the ground, taunting her to try her mutated powers on it. "Of course I could have just imagined the whole thing…" The school bus appeared in front of her and came to a screeching halt. The voices of yelling and laughing high school students erupted when the school bus doors flew open sideways.

Taking no time at all at the daily routine, Piper quickly got on the bus and made her way to school, the natural mountains of Tennessee were in the distance. She rolled her eyes, already getting tired at the long bus ride ahead of her before finally reaching the education center. She took a window seat and sat down, just as the bus started to be taking off once again.

"Yo, Piper, who do you think would win in a fight, Invisible Woman, or Green Hunter?" Asked a boy in the seat behind her.

"I don't care…" Piper said as she trailed on, her eyes never leaving the bus window. She seemed to be more entertained at the snowy scenery ahead of her, rather than the obnoxious ramblings of a teenaged nerd.

"She meant to say Green Hunter, obviously…" The same boy said to the girl across the bus.

"You know that vote doesn't count!" She argued.

"You'd think they'd be off that topic already", came a new voice that sat down next to her. She turned her head, alerted to this intruder. It was a boy, but she'd never seen him before.

"Sorry…Do I know you?" She asked rudely. The less human contact she had, the better. The boy looked at her, eyes wide with surprise.

"I'm Brent Thompson…We've been in the same class since the third grade", he said as he smiled.

"Oh…" Piper said as she tilted her head away from this boy. She felt him looking at her still, which made her sigh. 'So much for no human interaction this morning', she thought grimly.

"Is your hair a natural orange?" He asked trying to make conversation.

"Yes", she said, not wanting to carry on this topic anymore. 'Leave me alone…Talkative Thompson', Piper thought bitterly.

"That's cool. I have black hair myself, and I don't want my hair to be that color, you know? But it really suits yo-

The bus came to a screeching halt, and every student on the bus yelled in surprise as they were jerked forward. Piper looked to the front of the bus and saw that a disgruntled man boarded the bus and had messy orange lock that were in his face. "This bus…Is being hijacked..." The man said as he narrowed his eyes at the students. He then looked at the out of shape bus driver and snarled in her face, "Move!"

The bus suddenly picked up acceleration, jerking the students back. Piper tried to keep her face hidden from this man. He seemed violent, and she didn't want to try to pick a fight with this monster of a guy.

The man walked down the bus aisle, eyeing up each student like they were a tasty treat. He looked at Brent, who glared at him. 'You idiot!' Piper thought as she looked away.

"You think you can take on Sabertooth!" The man yelled as he grabbed Brent's shoulder and tossed him to the back of the bus. You could hear the glass on the back door crack when his body and hit it…Making everyone on the bus cringe, and a few that yelled out.

"Shut it!" Sabertooth yelled out as he punched the seat violently. Piper was trying to avoid contact, but the man smirked as he yanked the Piper's long curly orange hair and raised her up. She cried out in pain as she tried to shake him off.

"Let me go!" She yelled as she brought her hands up to the man's arm, trying to loosen his grip over her tender hair.

"Aren't you a fighter?" Sabertooth asked, more to himself in amusement than anyone else. "Is your name Piper, girl?" He asked as he leaned in close and examined her face. Her green eyes stared back at him, first in fear, and then she narrowed them.

"No, it's Sherlock, you asshole", Piper responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she brought her legs up and kicked him in the balls. He yelped in pain, dropping her to the ground. She scurried under the seats and tried to crawl her way to the front.

"You're going to pay for that, worm!" He snarled, letting out a grunt as he tried to snatch her body from under the seats.

"Make me, douche bag!" Piper yelled as she continued to army crawl her way to the front. She then felt a tug on her leg and found that she was being dragged from the aisle way of the bus. She tried to cling onto a seat, or anything, but there was nothing to grip!

Sabertooth brought her leg in the air, the rest of her body hanging loosely upside down. She tried to bring herself up, but she only knew a few self-defense moves…

"You're going to be coming with me, child", he said as he let out a huff of air.

"You have no idea how pissed off I am at being…Man handled like this!" Piper yelled as Sabertooth started to walk towards the front of the bus.

"Stop the bus", Sabertooth ordered as he glared at the bus driver. The bus driver looked uneasy, but nodded as she did what he said. Jerking the other students forward, and yet the tall muscular disheveled man hadn't moved an inch. The doors opened and he stepped out, the raging girl in tow as she continued to scream.

"Put me down, and we'll see how I'll beat you, you freak!" Piper yelled, continuing to taunt the villain. 'If only he knows that I was in the Judo, Karate, and Wrestling clubs!' Piper thought angrily as she kept on being ignored. The bus drove away, and she was left to fight on her own. 'And adults everywhere claim that they can help us…' Piper thought grimly as she was thrown over the man's shoulder.

"And now I'm being man carried! Great!" Piper yelled as she felt a sudden cold start to wash over her body, yet she didn't really focus on it, and left it up to being cold. Besides, she was too heated from her rage to be concerned with it. "Let me go so I can get back to my shitty way of living, you ass!" Piper yelled as she punched the back of the man as hard as she could with both fists.

She eyed the mountain in the distance, and noticed that a small avalanche was coming towards them. The snow then heated to water, so a tidal wave was coming in their direction. 'I didn't…Do that…?' Piper thought her eyes grew wide.

"Sabertooth!" yelled a new voice as he arrived at the scene. He was a gruff looking man as well, except her had three claws coming out of his hands.

"Wolverine!" Sabertooth yelled as he huffed out a breath, he growled as he flung Piper to the ground in anger. She grunted as she crawled over to a nearby tree and hugged it, awaiting the flood that was about to come anytime now.

"I'll finish you off!" Wolverine yelled as he yelled and charged at Sabertooth.

The ground began to shake, setting both of the gruff men off balance as they looked into the distance and noticed an enormous tidal wave coming their way. Sabertooth narrowed his eyes at Piper, the culprit, and she smiled at him sweetly. He charged at her, only to get swept away in the tidal wave, seconds later. Piper would have laughed, if the wave hadn't engulfed her, too. The tree snapped at the water's forced, and she yelled underwater, letting some of the water into her lungs. She had her hands outstretched, and a muscular hand grabbed hers.

She looked up and noticed that the man titled 'Wolverine' had caught her. He had dug his claws into the ground and looked at her with wide eyes. He closed them and tried to focus on not letting go. A few more seconds came and the wave started to die down. Piper started to cough, trying to get the water out of her lungs.

"Who are you?" Wolverine demanded as he stood up to his full height.

"Who are you?!" Piper retorted back, as she hacked up some more water.

"I'm Wolverine…I'm part of the X-Men", he said as he extended a hand out towards her. She narrowed her eyes at this. 'Can I trust him?' She thought as she slowly accepted the hand.

"Wolverine…Is that your 'superhero' name or something?" Piper asked giving air quotations to superhero.

"What's your name kid?" Wolverine asked as he put his claws away.

"Piper…And before you ask…I don't know if that was me…I don't know a whole lot these days", Piper said as she looked down at the ground.

* * *

The girl moved through the office building, after an 8 hour sleep, due to her father being the CEO of a great corporation. Go to bed early, wake up early. Rinse. Repeat. She sighed as she passed by the various cubicles that the workers occupied, not once glancing at them.

"Molly?" Asked a voice from behind the salmon colored hair girl. She kept on walking, not even realizing that someone had called her name. After all, she didn't even exist, not without a name. Her father hardly called her by her name, I suppose that she would have forgotten it after a few years.

"Molly?" The same voice called again, this time in a louder octave. She glanced behind her, her short shoulder length hair moved faintly with the motion. There was a female worker staring up at her. She seemed to be rather young, with blue hair cascading down her back. She smiled down at the girl.

The girl tilted her head to the side, in a confused gesture. She hadn't talked in a long time, not since her mother was still around. So, what did this woman want, exactly?

"How would you like to go out for some ice cream?" She asked sweetly. Molly just looked at the woman before turning her back and walking away, ignoring the woman all together. She didn't have time for such leisure activities. Not only this, but also her father would disapprove at such an activity. And according to her father, time was money. Or to be more exact, his money.

"Molly, wait!" The women yelled, alerting all the workers. Various heads popped up and looked in their general direction. Furiously, Molly turned back to the woman with a finger placed on her lips. She then grabbed the women's hand and walked her into a nearby empty office. "I'm sorry", the woman apologized after she had sat down. "It's just that…The way he treats you is horrible".

Molly sighed, having the woman look up at her suddenly. "Do you know why I am ordered not to speak?" The young girl asked the woman, who gasped at her voice. She had never heard it before, and she would never forget such an angelic voice. "It is because of my…Abilities. I am a telepathic, capable of reading minds. My father is afraid of this, afraid of me reading his mind, and therefore I am ordered to refrain from speaking".

The woman took a moment to process this, and then she smirked, "Don't you want to hurt your father…The same way he has hurt you?"

Noticing the change in her disposition, Molly narrowed her eyes, "What are you entailing?"

The blue haired girl suddenly stood up and her appearance changed to another worker, this time a man in a typical business suit. Molly blinked in surprise before getting up. "I'm a mutant too, Molly Grant. The way the homo-sapiens treat us…Is that not incentive for us to rebel?"

"Who are you, really?" Molly asked as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. 'Should I run?' She thought, in which the man smiled.

"I am Mystique, member of the Brotherhood", he said as he changed into a woman that was blue and had dark red hair.

"Ah…I see", Molly said as she blinked and took a step towards the door.

"Join us, Molly. We can resent the humans together. They are no match for our superior race", she said as she stuck out a hand, and Molly looked at it quizzically.

There was a loud noise which rang once, notifying the workers that the intercom was being used. "_Where is that useless freak when I need her? Come up to my office at once_!"

Molly sighed as she looked at the hand that was being extended to her, "I am sorry. But, without my father, I have nothing", she said as she started to walk out of the office.

"But without that human, you can have everything", Mystique remarked in a luring tone. Molly stopped walking and glanced back before sighing once again and making her way to the top of the building.

"There you are, you wretched freak! These people have shown up and demand to see you!" Her father said as he gestured to the man sitting in a wheelchair, as well as a red haired girl. Molly swallowed and titled her head to the side, as she had done before. "I couldn't believe it either! You, of all people!"

"We would like to talk to Molly alone", the man said as he glanced at the CEO. He bursted out laughing, all the while pouring himself some of his finest whisky.

"She hasn't talked in years, I doubt you'd ever get her to 'talk'", he said as he laughed, as if there was an inside joke that no one else in the world knew about. "Now, why don't you two leave? There's nothing here for you", he rudely said as he drank some of the poured whisky.

"Molly, if you want to talk priva-

The red headed girl got caught off by a grunt from Molly's father. "She won't talk. You're better off talking to a tree".

The two strangers looked at each other before the man started to speak, "I suppose we'll have to come at a later time".

As they started to make their way out of the office, Molly started to shake. She then smiled with confidence, she was going to find a way out of this cycle. After all, what that lady said earlier was right, she was the _superior_ race compared to these humans.

"I…Can talk now", Molly said, as she looked up to her father with a smirk on her face. She was met with the dark glare of her biological father.

The two stopped their leaving and turned back to the young girl, "Are you sure you want to talk now, Molly?" The man said with a kind smile on his face.

"Oh, yes. I would…Prefer it", she said as she turned her back to her father, much to his displeasement.

"You do not talk! You only talk when I command it!" He yelled out in rage as he threw his whisky glass at her. She then rose her hand and caught it, the liquid never leaving the class. She has a soft smile on her face while she slowly lowered it.

"Father, it is impolite to throw things. You of all people should know that", Molly lectured as she walked over to his desk and placed the glassware down with a soft 'thump'. He looked furious. She then looked into his eyes as he froze in fear. Eye contact was all that she needed. 'Calm down. We have guests', she enforced into his mind as her eyes lit up a bright red. The effects were immediate as he sighed and sat down on his office chair.

"Is everything alright, Molly?" The man asked, his wheelchair turning towards her direction.

"Everything is fine…May I inquire of what we are to talk about?" She asked as she turned around and smiled, her eyes turning back to their original color.

"Molly, we know that what you're going through, and we want you to know that we're here to help you", the red head said as she smiled.

* * *

**A/N: Aaaand that's a wrap! Next chapter is uploaded whenever I have a chance. **


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